The central premise of “global warming” is that human greenhouse-gas emissions will lead to a rise in the earth’s average surface temperature, and that as emissions continue to increase (a result of population growth and the desire to improve public health and welfare through increased energy availability), global average temperature will rise ever faster, that is, accelerate.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), back in 2007, claimed the acceleration was happening. This is a central part of both their global warming meme and the notion that it will lead to all sorts of negative consequences (and few, if any, positive ones).

Figure 1. Global average surface temperature history with trends through various periods emphasized by the IPCC to bolster their argument that global warming was accelerating (source: IPCC Fourth Assessment Report).

As proof the story told by the IPCC represented the “consensus of scientists,” a research team led by John Cook, founder of the website skepticalscience.com, (which is only “skeptical” about “skeptics”) surveyed the topical scientific literature, and categorized relevant publications as either endorsing the “scientific consensus” that “humans are causing global warming,” or rejecting it. They found that of those papers in which the authors expressed their opinions, 97.1% endorsed the “scientific consensus.”

The results of this study have been trumpeted ever since by climate alarmists and supporters of efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions the world over. President Obama even tweeted it:

While the White House doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being evenhanded about climate change, we still need to point out that the Cook et al. results said nothing about it being “dangerous.”

What Cook et al. did claim to find—that a high percentage of scientists that think that humans play some role in “global warming”—seems to comport pretty well with our own experiences with climate scientists and the climate literature. We definitely would fall within Cook’s 97 percent.

[Note: there is fair amount of criticism directed at the Cook et al. study, and the accuracy of the 97% number, and we are not specifically endorsing it here. Put simply, some think it’s the data that have been “Cooked” and we would not be surprised if some day the paper is retracted—but, regardless of the details, the percentage is still high].

The fact humans play a role in the enhancing the greenhouse effect leading to global warming is hardly actionable. The relevant questions are “How?” and “How much?”

The answers to these questions (and the specifics and details) are required to inform policy decisions. And, with regard to these, the science is most definitely not settled.

For example, is global warming really accelerating?

Not these days. In fact, observations show that the rise in the global average surface temperature has been little different (in the case of the University of East Anglia record, no different) from zero for the past 18 years or so. So instead of accelerating, global warming is actually decelerating, or, (nearly) stopped.

This period is colloquially known as the global warming “hiatus,” “pause,” or “slowdown,” and its existence seriously undermines the high-end, high-impact climate scenarios so beloved by the IPCC.

Is it the “consensus of scientists” that this “hiatus” is real, or is it just a manifestation of the “skeptical” global warming naysayers as we have so often been told?

So, we decided to use Cook’s own (debatable) methodology to find out.

We identified papers published between 2009 and 2014 and currently cataloged in the Web of Science database that included either the term “pause” or “hiatus” or “slowdown” and subsequently, the terms “global” and “temperature.” We then read the abstracts of those papers (or the papers themselves if further investigation was required) and assigned them to one of the following three categories: “not applicable,” “acknowledging the existence of a slowdown or stoppage in global warming (as reflected in the earth average surface temperature) in recent years,” and “arguing that a slowdown or stoppage of global warming (as reflected in the earth average surface temperature) has not occurred in recent years.”

Of the 100 papers we identified, 65 didn’t have anything to do with recent global temperature trends (these typified papers published prior to about 2010). Of the remaining 35 papers, every single one of them acknowledged in some way that a hiatus, pause, or slowdown in global warming was occurring.

In other words, we didn’t find a single paper on the topic that argued the rate of global warming has not slowed (or even stopped) in recent years. This is in direct opposition to the IPCC’s contention that global warming is accelerating, and supports arguments that the amount of warming that will occur over the remainder of the 21st century as a result of human fossil fuel usage will be at the low end of the IPCC projections, or even lower. Low-end warming yields low-end impacts.

We surely may have missed a few papers that were not cataloged in the database we used, or that weren’t captured by our search terms, but the evidence is overwhelming—virtually all (if not actually all) scientific papers that mention a hiatus or pause agree that it exists.

So while 97% of scientists may agree that global warming is caused by humans, virtually 100% agree that global warming has stopped or slowed considerably during the 21st century.

Keeling proved that CO2 levels are rising in the 70’s. And it IS a problem. Every doubling of CO2 equals a 3-4 degree C increase in global temperatures. Global Warming is happening, but it is more accurate to name it climate change, even though I do not agree with Luntz’s advice that it sounds less threatening. Look at record temperatures for the past 2 decades. More record highs, less record lows. Greater fluctuations in weather patterns and extreme weather events. The most likely reason for a decrease in rising temps is particulate matter from burning coal. It is believed that the forcings of these pollutants are masking the temperature rise we would otherwise be seeing. If these shorter lived pollutants are addressed in Paris 2015 and are reduced, the temperature should rise to the predicted levels by 2050. It is also possible that the Southern Oscillation is being affected by changing ocean temperatures which would change weather patterns all over the world. I have been studying the IPCC reports for decades and I admire their endeavor to inform policy, but I do believe they have underestimated and underplayed the consequences and question their position that it is only their job to advise policy. I am a follower of Hansen and I agree that scientists should be involved in policy making. Unfortunately, the policy makers only want to hear “science” that fits their fossil fuel agenda.

Sassinak says:Every doubling of CO2 equals a 3-4 degree C increase in global temperatures.Wrong. When you begin with a wrong premise, naturally you will come to a wrong conclusion.
Next false statement:Global Warming is happening
No, it isn’t. Global warming stopped many years ago.
Next:Greater fluctuations in weather patterns and extreme weather events.
Wrong again! WHERE are you getting your misinformation?? Extreme weather events have been declining across the board for decades.I have been studying the IPCC reports for decades…
Well, there’s your problem right there. The UN/IPCC is not a scientific organization, it is a propagands organ of the UN. As Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chairman of the IPCC’s Working Group 3 has stated on the record:One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.

CO2 is NOT causing global warming, in fact, CO2 is lagging temperature change in all reliable datasets. The cart is not pulling the donkey, and the future cannot influence the past. The so called doubling effect of C02 does not exist, its proven that the degree of heat absorbtion decreases with the increase of C02 even if it were a problem. Back to school for you im afraid.

“The most likely reason for a decrease in rising temps is particulate matter from burning coal. It is believed that the forcings of these pollutants are masking the temperature rise we would otherwise be seeing. If these shorter lived pollutants are addressed in Paris 2015 and are reduced, the temperature should rise to the predicted levels by 2050.”
Not that I believe your explanation for the pause for one instant, but if that were true, then OBVIOUS “solution” to the “problem” of global warming is to burn more coal. And whatever is going on in Paris next year, they’d damn well better not due anything to REDUCE these pollutants. I know, I know, these pollutants from burning coal are a problem themselves. But if global warming is half the problem you Hansenites want us to believe it is, then the coal particulate pollution is, by far, the lesser of two evils.
Regards,
Trevor

Keeling showed CO2 was rising since 1958. You can almost certainly extrapolate backwards to say it was rising before that time as well. Inconveniently global temperatures fell for 40 years, ending in about 1976. After that temps rose for 20 years. Now they are flat for almost another 20 years yet CO2 has continued to rise. So in the last roughly 80 years of CO2 rising there has been a negative correlation with temps over 60 of those years. This is too small a time frame to really work with, but it seemed to suit the alarmist who could only ever shrilly cry about, “the warmest 20 years”. CO2 is not the problem. But a socialist agenda to take money from the doers and give it to the slackers is a problem.

Causality is not causation. I can look at a graph of rising numbers all day between the 1970’s and 2014 and can conclude with out a shadow of a doubt that Illegal aliens from Mexico causes global warming.

The relationship between CO2 and climate change isn’t assumed due to correlation. It’s known due to decades of scientific research in multiple disciplines. And on top of that, there’s also correlation.

Sassinak – if burning coal as you say is the “most likely reason for a decrease in rising temps” then you are siding with those who want to continue burning coal. You are in a conundrum.
Please provide data (not just opinion) that backs up your statement that there are “greater fluctuations in weather patterns and extreme weather events. ” Thanks.

Sir Harry Flashman – Have these “many decades” of research (That concludes that Human contribution of C02) been validated by the scientific method? Of course not it’s impossible. The whole unpleasantness was based on poor assumptions from singling out one molecule from an immensely chaotic system filled with far more stronger contributors to an atmospheric system.
If I started out with the assumption that Mexicans do cause global warming any amount of research I make will always conclude that Mexicans are causing global warming. In light of these many years of research the pause did invalidate every new goal posts that the AGW advocates have laid out. Every one of them. The more I look at the theory of AGW the more laughably weak it is. So many false assumptions (not just 1) to create this illusion that man kind is at fault. In fact the AGW theory contains multiple theories that have never been proven. It is a silly theory no more different than Unicorns farting rainbows.
The rise of CO2 is Does not correlate with the rise in temperature.

Flash sez:The relationship between CO2 and climate change isn’t assumed due to correlation… And on top of that, there’s also correlation.
And on top of that, you’re another crack addict. What planet are you from? ☺

Thank you Sir Henry, I think. I have obviously upset some people here. You are correct that the Earth should be cooling. According to the Milankovitch cycles we should be heading into a new glacial period., However, even though CO2 levels have been as high as they are now in the past, the difference between then and now is in the paleo record the temperature rise came first, then the CO2 levels rose afterwards.We are seeing the opposite effect now. And these changes happened over millions of years not the few centuries that we are seeing at present. .You wanted references? ok, here ya go. From my lecture notes from Dr. Charles Kennel, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, UCSD.
1.Frost-free season length has increased by @ 10 days (1901-1960 vs. 2001-2011)
2. Europe’s 5 hottest summers since the 1500’s were in the years between 2002-2010.
3. In the 1960’s, summertime temperature deviations of more than 3 degrees above the mean were almost non-existent, affecting less than 1% of Earth’s surface.This area has increased to 4-5% by 2006-2008, by 6-13% by 2009-2011.
Global Dimming-Sulfate aerosols are reflecting visible sunlight back into space making the sun less bright and cooling the planet. Net effect= -2.1 w/m2
. Rahmstorf, S., A. Cazenave, J. A. Church, J. E. Hansen, R. F. Keeling, D. E. Parker,
and R. C. J. Somerville, 2007: Recent climate observations compared to projections.
Science, 316, 709 (2007); published online 1 February 2007 (10.1126/science. 1136843)
.Somerville, R. C. J., 2013: Climate Change, Irreversibility and Urgency. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
And for all you believers in Jastrow, Seitz and Nierenberg and their associated doubt-mongering lobbyists like The George Marshall Institute, The Cato Institute, The Competitive Enterprise Institute, etc. I suggest you read the history of these men and the roles they played in creating this fustercluck and why they did it. These same respected scientists defended the tobacco industry, the severity of the hole in the ozone layer, the effects of DDT, and many other lies using the same tactics.
Merchants Of Doubt by Oreskes and Conway. It is now a documentary for those of you who can’t read.
Somerville, R. C. J., 2013: Is learning about climate change like having a colonoscopy? Earth’s Future, 16 Dec. 2013: doi:10.1002/2013EF000169. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000169/full

There is equal evidence for a pause and a peak.
And no, I’m not wanting cooling. I live in a winter climate. Just a geological heartbeat ago this area was under 2 miles of ice. There’s an erratic a few miles from me that is larger than my house…. just lying in the middle of the prairie.
The most beneficial thing for this entire planet is warming. I have little regard for those worrying about warming.

Yes, “extreme moderation” is exactly what the alarmists will be screaming when they finally have to admit that the warming has stopped. When the globe was cooling, that was cause for alarm. When it was warming, that was cause for alarm. And now, when it’s pretty much staying the same, that will be cause for alarm too. They have to cover all the bases to keep themselves in a constant state of alarm over the climate.

CodeTech says November 18, 2014 at 1:28 pm :It’s not a pause, it’s a peak.
Yes, it should be a peak CodeTech, but instead it is a climatologist-made plateau by way of careful adjustments to hide the decline and keep the status quo (ie, dirty $$s flowing). We are already a good way down the slope past the peak that was passed in about 2005. My prediction — without some gains and grants for being honest instead you will never see the decline that we all can feel and know is real.

Sorry to pick nits, but at this time it can only be called a point of undulation, where the slope becomes zero. Too early to tell if it is an inflection point, or a peak. Tweaking out a second derivative would be dicey. Nature will tell us in time.

“So while 97% of scientists may agree that global warming is caused by humans, virtually 100% agree that global warming has stopped or slowed considerably during the 21st century.”
What a great soundbite! Short and to the point.

One could do one on a dubbed speech by the USA’s Greatest Serving President. Might need to be dubbed (incompetently) into one of the minor Indonesian languages.
And France’s Greatest Incumbent President (perhaps dubbed into q Brazilian dialect) . . .
The jolly jowly – and in-office – Cameron [described as ‘Conservative’] could be dubbed into Scottish Gaelic . . . .
And so on, but all with the sound-bite:-
“So while 97% of scientists may agree that global warming is caused by humans, virtually 100% agree that global warming has stopped or slowed considerably during the 21st century.”
I’m no good with the high computer functions.
Needs someone better at this than I am [maybe, but not necessarily, [PC qualification] younger]!
Auto

EPA Chief says that the 18 year pause in global warming is not climate.
Satellite temperature data, which measures the lower parts of the Earth’s atmosphere, shows there has been no significant warming trend for the last 18 years or so. Surface temperatures from weather stations, buoys and ships show a lack of warming for about the last 15 years or so.
Environmental Protection Agency Chief Gina McCarthy’s response:
“That is a short-lived issue that doesn’t represent climate,”http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/17/epa-chief-pause-in-global-warming-doesnt-represent-climate/

He (she?) didn’t note that the period in which we had “dangerous warming” before the pause was also a short lived issue that apparently ‘doesn’t represent climate’, or represents climate only too well.

In a manner, yes, because the ‘pause’ has not undone the warming between 1980 and 2000.
Anyway, we will be seeing desperate goal-post moving, like seawater heat content, or various proxies proving that some warming is happening right now.

in Re: “In a manner, yes, because the ‘pause’ has not undone the warming between 1980 and 2000.”
– What about the global cooling during 50s 60s and 70s?
If it rained 2 weeks then was dry 2 weeks – would you assume a pause in increased rainfall?
If it was dry 3 weeks, rained 2 weeks, then was dry 2 weeks – would you assume a pause in increased rainfall?
We have a small natural variation in temperature over short-run, been going on thousands of years.
We have flat temps for almost two decades, but I reject (statistically), the hypothesis that there has been a “pause” in AGW warming, and same for change in CO2 causing a small bit of warming 20 years ago, it is a spurious correlation for maybe two decades, but if including decades prior and after does not exist, might as well say increase in organic food consumption caused higher autism rates or is correlated as “proof.”
This word “pause” second hand assumes a permanent rise in mean, sort of like wording changing “global warming” to “climatic change” or calling “illegal immigrants” who broke laws entering US “undocumented aliens,” for me more manipulation of words.

Well then, give a figure for the number of years that do represent climate, state your reasons for that and not some other number, then use it consistently. If 18 years without warming is not enough to conclude “the world is not getting warmer”, how are 18 years or less of warming sufficient to establish that it is?
I think the relevant figure the Obama Administration is using is 18-20 months — the amount of time they have to get anything done before 2016 elections crowd out any possibility of action. Of course, he can still use his phone and his pen right up to the moment the next president is sworn in.

Alarmists appear to consider 30 years to be ‘climatology(?!)’ so I guess we are only 60% of the way to ‘climate’. Certainly no one is saying that 18years is weather. We can only predict a week ahead (sort of) in that genre.

Gina conveniently ignores the fact that a pause essentially nullifies ALL of the computer climate models. They were ALL wrong. But I guess it’s business as usual for the eco-warriors at the EPA and the IPCC and the WH.

And all those EPA staffers, and leaders, are dogmatically honest, transparent, data-publishing scientists.
With no skin in the game.
With impeccable, non-partisan backgrounds, CVs and (absolute lack of) ah – leanings.
With no connections to former employers in the lobbying industry. None at all.
Sure.
Of course.
Naturally – what do you expect of B.H. Obama-appointees?
Mod – / just ever so slightly /SARC:
. . . . . . wouldn’t you agree?
Auto
[What? Oh. Was that sarcasm? See, usually, sarcasm implies at least a little exaggeration of the topic. 8<) .mod]

If 18 years is not climate then neither are extreme weather events, heatwaves, cold waves, floods, droughts etc. They want to have their cake and eat it. PS how many more years before the standstill equals the recent uptick in warming ~1977?

It has already been published in what has rapidly become the most if no the only authoritative journal on climate: WattsUpWithThat. This journal has by far the most stringent review process of any journal – a hoard of sceptics.

Sadly, it is still quite a feat to get a diehard climate catastrophist to even admit to the pause.
I’m not talking about whacko green-peace diz-brains here, either. I’m talking about people with PhD’s.
Their indoctrination is so complete, their confirmation bias so acute, that it is not within their psyche to admit even one thing that goes against the fascist party line.
I get the word “cherry picker” a lot when I say “Do you know that it hasn’t warmed in 18 years and 1 month!”

You can avoid cherry picking by stating that the increasing global warming anomaly stopped in 2001. It did, there’s no arguing with that. So it’s 13 years, not 18. The method is to use woodfortrees meta-data ‘WFT’ Temperature Index. Every year after 2001 shows a fall.

Most of the people I’ve deal with my entire life have PhD’s. My parents and uncles/ants have PhD’s, I grew up to earn my own, I married another, and I have worked for decades surrounded by them.
I can tell you without an significant margin of error that a PhD means very little outside certain specialized knowledge that, by the way, it is strikingly lacking in many, many, many cases.

PHD – someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.
Thats not to say PHD research is useless, it’s just confined to a very narrow domain, the insights can be important (not in the pseudoscience domain of chaotic climate averaging, but say physics, chemistry and engineering. The theory behind the transistor was revolutionary, but it is still a very narrow domain scientifically.

I don’t understand the angst about getting the rent seekers to agree. They have lied to the world for so long they believe their lie.(some of the minority). I feel we are wasting time proving over and over that their belief is wrong. Leave them in the ashes of history, and let those of us still willing to use the Scientific Method carry on. Nature has already pulled their sheets.

Technically speaking, we are between Ice ages.
Two, we are between mini-ices ages that appear about every 1000 years.
Three, we are in a centennial cooling period that will adjust the environment, animal life outside it’s boundaries as typography will begin to creep north and south of the Equator beginning 2035
It’s not man made.
It is based on all the Milankovich cycles and sunspot activity.
Paul

No sir. TECHNICALLY, we are IN an ice age right now, and have been for about 2.6 million years (with tens or hundreds millions ore years to go, if past ice ages are any indication). We are in an “interglacial” period (between glacial periods, when there is less year-round ice, but still some) of the current ice age, but until all of the ice at the north and south poles, and all of the ice in the mountain glaciers, melts, we will remain in an ice age.
The distinction between an “ice age” and a “glacial period” is not one that most people understand. But an important point is that, even including the interglacial periods of ice ages, ice ages account for less than 20% of the geological history of the planet. That’s right, for over 80% of the Earth’s history, global average temperatures were HIGHER than they are now. And it was in those NON-ice ages that conditions were most favorable for life. Honestly, I wish there was something to this man-made global warming theory, because if there was, then perhaps we could break out of the current ice age tens of millions of years ahead of schedule, and see a return to the planet’s NORMAL climate.

This aint gonna stop anything – obama proceeds with his destructive societal limitations unimpeded.
The conman George C Parker “sold” the Brooklyn Bridge many times over. The difference is – he paid for his crimes; obama and the warmunists never will.
Psst – hey buddy – I got some carbon credits to sell you…

“In other words, we didn’t find a single paper on the topic that argued the rate of global warming has not slowed (or even stopped) in recent years. This is in direct opposition to the IPCC’s contention that global warming is accelerating, a”
No, you can add the IPCC to the 100% (if that’s possible). The AR5 SPM says:“The observed reduction in surface warming trend over the period 1998 to 2012 as compared to the period 1951 to 2012, is due in roughly equal measure to a reduced trend in radiative forcing and a cooling contribution from natural internal variability, which includes a possible redistribution of heat within the ocean (medium confidence).”
The unanimity is not surprising (though I bet they didn’t all say that it has nearly stopped). There has been a slowdown. You won’t, though, find 100% of temperature indices that tell you that global warming has stopped. RSS is on its own there.

Well, there’s plenty of data manipulation. They aren’t just reading a thermometer.
And there are plenty of issues about sensors, including the issue of exactly where they are. That’s why UAH and RSS, with no UHI etc, are still in stark disagreement.

For the question for cAGW though, the issue isn’t Temperature trend vs the horizontal but Temperature trend vs the expected rise in the models.
If the models are wrong then we have no reason to expect any particular trend in the Temperature – no positive feedbacks – no catastrophe.
That is where the pause is seen; Temperature rise vs Expected Temperature rise.

Nick writes “Well, Roy Spencer can. They are very different.”
Roy speculates on a differing correction that is essentially the satellite version of a TOBs adjustment. The land based TOBs adjustment accounts for about half the “observed” warming.
And then Mann (and others) think that tree rings and sediments can represent historic global temperatures.
The whole field’s understanding on the limitations of their data is a joke when it comes to their public statements.

Nick Stokes says that UAH and RSS……are very different.
Not very. Both show that global warming stopped many years ago.
Also, while I greatly admire Dr Spencer, I note that UAH and RSS are both in direct competition with each other for the same government dollars. So it is not surprising that there is some competitive sniping going on.
But the fact remains: global warming has stopped. Deal with it, and quit cherry-picking to support your confirmation bias. Even the IPCC admits that global warming has stopped. If you don’t like it, argue with them.

PS: As the article notes, the green line isn’t a trend line. For the actual statistical analysis, please read the original paper.
McKitrick, R. (2014) HAC-Robust Measurement of the Duration of a Trendless Subsample in a Global Climate Time Series. Open Journal of Statistics, 4, 527-535. doi: 10.4236/ojs.2014.47050.

I would not be so sure about the “and counting”. Dr. McKitrick went to April when they still had Hadcrut4.2. In August, they switched to Hadcrut4.3 which was warmer. In addition, the last few months have been very warm as well, not only on Hadcrut4.3, but GISS as well.

Werner, you could well be right, but it was pretty robust up to the end of his analysis. And so far North America is off to a record-breaking cold November. Haven’t checked Siberia. And the warm spot in the NE Pacific has evaporated or sunk back into the depths from which it came.
Here’s the citation as a clickable link:http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=49307#.VGvddWcXKou

Please explain why the slope of your trend line differs from McKitrick’s. That the green line isn’t his slope doesn’t signify. He found no statistically significant trend. You imagine that you have done so. I’d like to know how your statistical art is better than his.
Thanks.

There’s a whole lot of ‘spalinin’ to be done here, particularly since UAE’s “data” series is a complete fabrication, but I’d say it’s up to you to explain why your amateur statistical “analysis” is to be preferred to McKitrick’s professional and peer-reviewed analysis.

Nickie won’t like that you compared and contrasted unfavorably his WFT amateur statistical “analysis” with Ross’ professional, peer-reviewed, ie real, analysis.
My guess is that Nickie can’t explain the “stark” divergence, so won’t even try, which might be to his credit.

Please explain why the slope of your trend line differs from McKitrick’s.
See the following for RSS:http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/last:312/plot/rss/last:312/trend/plot/rss/last:312/trend/detrend:0.3222544/plot/rss/last:312/trend/detrend:-0.3222544/plot/rss/from:1996.65/trend/plot/rss/from:1996.65/trend/detrend:0.20096/plot/rss/from:1996.65/trend/detrend:-0.20096
Before I discuss Dr. McKitrick’s 26 years, I would like to give this quote from NOAA from here:http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
”The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
From the above, it appears that climate scientists do not attach a huge amount of importance to the time for a slope of 0, but rather to the time that the warming is not statistically significant at the 95% level.
What Dr. McKitrick has found is that for RSS, the warming is not statistically significant at the 95% level for 26 years. So if WFT gives a warming rate of X C/year, the error bars are also +/- X C/year.
According to WFT, there is warming from 26 years ago at the rate of 0.0123944 C/year. So this means that we can be 95% sure the real warming rate is 0.0123944 C/year +/- 0.0123944 C/year. Doing the adding and subtracting, this gives, at the 95% level, a range of between 0.0247888 C/year and 0. These two ranges are indicated on the graph above starting at November 1988. Since the lower number is 0 and therefore not positive, climate scientists would say the warming since November 1988 is not statistically significant, at least according to RSS.
Analogous to the case with no warming, there is a 2.5% chance that the warming over 26 years is larger than 0.0247888 C/year. However there is at least a 2.5% chance that there has been cooling over the last 26 years according to Dr. McKitrick’s calculations using the RSS data.

Nick Stokes,
I notice your trend line is declining between your first and second charts. If I keep posting charts, and you keep posting charts, the trend line will invariably end up flat.
Look at Catherine Ronconi’s chart. Global warming has stopped. Even the UN/IPCC admits that. They call it a “pause” and a “hiatus”, but it means the same thing: global warming has stopped. And it stopped many years ago. So I got a question for you and your clique:
Where is your god now?
If you think I’m ridiculing your preposterous claim that GW is chugging right along… why, yes. Yes, I am.☺

Catherine,
The graph you present to support this claim is quite a ridiculous. I hope you can see that. You cannot simply take some temperature in 2014 that matches a temperature in 1995 and say this proves no warming. It is statistically absurd. Furthermore, this is NOT from Professor McKitricks paper.
If there is any justification for you graph you need to explain it.

MikeB
November 19, 2014 at 2:04 am
The graph is what it is. It is not in the least ridiculous. I must assume that you take issue not with the graph but with the green line.
That isn’t important. The fact is that even in a questionable data set, the Team’s lie is exposed.
No wonder so many have commented here with frantic hand waving and special pleading.
Game, set and match. Mother Nature wins and the Team loses.
Deal with it. After 2016, God willing, the anti-human “climate change” gravy train will stop running and the public trough will run dry. The totally corrupt “climate scientists” will be lucky not to be lynched. The criminals will stay out of prison only because prosecuting them for their conspiratorial fraud would have a chilling (so to speak) effect on real science.

Catherine Ronconi November 18, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Catherine, I hate to tell you that this 19 year graph is based on phony temperature records. HadCRUT data you show is riddled with computer noise, and so are NCDC and GISS, the other two ground-based temperature sources. The noise manifests itself as sharp spikes directed upwards at the beginnings of years. The spike at the left to which your temperature is anchored is one of them. Others visible in this same graph are located at 1998 (phony peak just to the left of the real peak, but higher), 2002, and 2007. They are a residue of secret computer processing that all three data sets were subjected to. They screwed up and did not notice that the computer was leaving its footprints on the data. All three data sets show exessive warming and it is not unlikely that this processing is how their temperatures were brought into synchrony. Compare it to full satellite graph to find more such noise spikes. In the future, use only satellite temperatures when available.

So Nick, you agree with the following concerning the theory, CAGW; the “C” is missing, (the benefits of increased CO2 outweigh the predicted harms) the “GW” is well below 97% of the models for the surface record and the GW is below all the models for troposphere warming, and the GW is within the past natural bonds of the climate before 1950, making the “A” influence likely lower and less confident to quantify, and the use of the wrong multi model mean to predict future warming is unscientific.http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg

That “acceleration” concept gets into trouble right away with the “law of diminishing returns” for the “greenhouse effect” of increasing carbon dioxide concentration. Other feedback effects must be introduced, and their validity is uncertain.

As an Australian I am so pleased to see some Queensland Government Ministers, hosts of the G20, express their displeasure at President Obama’s recent G20 comments regarding Australia’s so called CO2 emissions and the supposed destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.
This climate boondoggle and corruption of ‘life as we know it’ has to stop.
I can assure you that regular thinking Australians hold the contemptible “marxist/green/progressives” as enemies of reasoning wherever they are found.

Truth has absolutely NO place in the warmists’ argument. The only thing that matters is the political outcome, which is an end to our energy based society. The end of a society is not pretty. It has happened in the past and is always brutal. Kind of strange that the bleeding heart liberals ,the very ones who claim to represent peace are the ones leading the way to the destruction of society. What these fools do not realize is that their skill sets will be absolutely useless in the aftermath of the bloodbath of their making. The New World Order will not really have a place for these people without totally collapsing it again.
Obama, by banging the drum for the army of lies reveals his true intentions.

I once heard a commentater say that many liberals are so self-deluded that they could actually pass a lie detector test when questioned about their dissembling — kind of like the pathology of a murderer who claims innocence all the way to execution.

An Eocene ‘paradise’ that is where I would like to be, who gave the ipecac permission to set the world thermostat. I will decide my comfort zone temperature. I will continue to keep my greenhouse at 1100 ppm Co2, as I know from real world results what plants like best. The paleoclimatologist have a better handle on the past temperatures and climate and Co2 levels than any climate model the ipcc you can churn out just to keep the UN happy.

Arctic biomes are such a recent innovation that most of their species are varieties of temperate forms. The Arctic fox from the kit fox and polar bear from the grizzly are two obvious examples.
I’ve thought about whether the world is better off with its icy Arctic or not. I’ve decided I like it because its habitats have challenged human ingenuity. I don’t know how much validity the study had, but some decades ago an historian of technology determined that Eskimos had the highest rate of invention per capita of any known population, putting the proud English to shame.

This is to comment on your previous graph and all the comments you received about it.
The green line you added (as well as all other green lines added to all subsequent graphs) should not be there. Also the red line in all the graphs should be omitted.
The only thing on theses graphs should be the data points. No line of any kind.
The legend for the Figure should then be: “Scatter plot of the measurements obtained between year xxx and year yyy. Linear regression analysis revealed no statistically significant trend”
If there is no trend, no line with zero slope should be there and no line of slight positive or negative slope should be there. If you want, you can add the average of all the data points in the legend.

I didn’t add the green line, but IMO it’s instructive.
The fact is that there has been no statistically significant warming, even in the bogus, blatantly “adjusted” data sets relied upon by the Team, ie enemies of humanity, since sometime in the 1990s, Precise date depending upon set, while beneficial, essential trace gas, plant food CO2 has gone up allegedly at the same rate as before. This means that the GIGO models are falsified, if we go by real science rather than post-modern science of the Mosher-Oreskes concoction.

Hugh, the whole “data set” is a product of trough-feeding swine in the first place.
When the world cools over the coming decades and millions die, your climate Team buddies will be lucky to avoid being strung up by their necks until dead.
Which would be merciful. There will be tens of millions who want them hauled down before death, then drawn and quartered, with their entrails burnt before their eyes.

I went over to the UNFCCC website earlier and it struck me: the climate change boondoggle is a self-sustaining monster, producing endless reports and infographics, ‘research’. It really doesn’t matter if there’s any truth or even a robust hypothesis there. It exists to replicate, to spawn. A bureaucratic perpetuum mobile which will only stop when we stop paying for it

On the creation of a sound bite, the rules are- headline MUST be 10 words or less. If you cannot gain attention in 10 words, forget it. I did an informal psychological test recently at a large running event (crowd of 100,000-probably the largest number of people assembled in a single place in the entire country) with a double sided placard. The message was basically the same, but one side had the 10 word slogan, the other side had a 12 word slogan. I was watching for people looking at the message through sunglasses. It was quite clear that vastly more people looked at the 10 word slogan. The message was about UN inaction on ISIS atrocities. Had the usual few morons parroting atrocities against Palestine by Israel defending its sovereign borders, but mainly support for the message. Eventually I was thrown out by the event organizers because they claimed that they had hired the whole area from the local council(of which I am a ratepayer) and not entitled to be hooking up to the people flow. Next year, I will be armed with a legal opinion – I may well be able to sue for deprivation of freedom of speech. As I was not “selling” anything(in which case it is perfectly reasonable for me to pay a fee to the organizers) I may well have a case. Perhaps a threat of legal action and take the name of the person and organization trying to throw me out (major news outlet) will spook them. It would be just so sweet to have this major news outlet, known for their left-leaning content busted for trying to crush free speech.
We need our own Doran-Zimmerman style “study” to create a catchy headline. Apart from time researching the addresses of people to survey, it is only about $40,000 for the postage and reply envelopes. Data entry and collation costs should only be another $10,000. An email survey would be even cheaper to conduct. A couple of prizes as an incentive to participate would be useful. I am happy to participate in the framing of the questions. Another good one is the Roy Spencer chart of real temperatures v model temperatures with “match the certainties of the model hypothesis” sent to anyone with a science degree(certainties at various IPCC report years). Do not say what the chart is-have it in the email reply of the answers to the respondents a couple of days later. If this can be done by email or FaceBook, it will be a very cheap survey and education tool.

Use the Guardian Environment website comments.
See what factual comments gets banned and what gets deleted with no trace.
For a start try the graph of T rise in the first half of the 20th C compared with the second half. They are identical desire more emissions in the second half. See what scares the alarmists.
This is also a good way to piggyback their research.

Thanks Pat and Chip.
Cook’s paper is no doubt a piece of planned out propaganda as opposed to a serious academic paper.
We know from the temperature record that there is variance and periods of warming and cooling. In the decade before the “hiatus,” many claimed CO2 was the cause of a short rise in temps, but they fail to explain why temps were falling prior while CO2 was rising, abet many were on another bandwagon claiming in the 70s that another ice age was imminent with catastrophe. The natural change in temps has little to do with the steady rise in atmospheric CO2 from 3 to 4 parts per 10,000 during last 100 years or so. If looking at the longer haul in temps, CO2 fails the statistical test, so I guess propaganda to convince people it is true was the next step even to the outright fraud of “adjusting” the taxpayer funded surface instrument record at GISS (clearly now deviating from RSS in a certain direction) to prove a falsehood. I hope there are congressional hearings next spring to expose this scientific charade.
Could there be a consensus that global warming would be beneficial as compared to global cooling? people freezing, starvation, massive energy use to heat houses, as opposed to lush and more tropical climate, grape vines in London a bit more than a millennium ago and crops in Greenland when it was warmer than now? The IPCC report is a joke amassing economic damage from warming being things like the loss in tourism jobs from closed ski resorts for a degree rise forecast over decades and fewer crops. It is hard to grow crops in a shorter growing season is cooler, easier if warmer. CO2, while only a trace gas, is immensely beneficial for agriculture and make the world greener, if say went in other direction with a fall from 3 to 2 parts per 10,000, something like 20% of plant mass on planet would disappear, – then what would happen?

Global warming was never accelerating as Christopher Monckton has shown; the IPCC claim was based on the fraudulent graph above which exploits the endpoint fallacy to scarify the gullible.
The rate of warming ~1910 – ~1945 when human emissions were relatively insignificant is almost the same as 1975 – 2000.

WUWT should keep a database of climate change predictions on file, perhaps under the “Climate FAIL Files” category where excuses for the pause are kept. I bet Jimbo could come up with most of them. He’s good at digging up past quotes. It would also be a good crowdsourcing exercise.

Our Governor “the sky is falling” Brown is going full steam ahead with Obama’s policy’s. They will not be stopped. I had hoped to retire in the place I was born, but fear I won’t be able to afford it. I want to be comfortably warm in retirement. And don’t tell me about Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas or points east. I said warm, not hot, dry heat or moist heat. There is no other climate like a mile from the beach in southern Orange County. The Progressives will be hard to stop until Scientist’s get out of Politics.Don’t see that happening soon.

“warmist scientists” = all the scientists. “Cause of the pause” is a denier phrase, since there’s no pause. What real-life science grownups are talking about is why the rate of increase has slowed. And what’s going to happen when it accelerates again.
Still, it’s a hallmark of actual science that when data don’t match the models, you acknowledge it and attempt to figure out why, which is precisely what’s going on now. The thing is, the people who study climate professionally are in pretty much universal agreement that a slowdown doesn’t reverse the laws of physics that are causing warming, and that the piper is still going to have to be paid.

Even in troll mode you must realize that all the “scientists” are not warmists. Only those whose job depends upon their so being.
Even the IPCC acknowledges the “pause” or “peak”, whatever it may be. You’re still convincing me that you’re pulling our leg.

“Troll mode” merely indicates the poster is looking for responses. It says nothing about the accuracy of their posts. Indeed, in order to get more responses, the posts are more often than not complete fabrications.

That’s simply not true – the overwhelming majority of climate scientists who support global warming are doing their job honestly and diligently, regardless of the accusations levelled against them by the conspiracy theorists. The reason why every major scientific organization in the world, not mention big business and the Pentagon (who are not obeying Obama as postulated here by the tin foil hat brigade; they’ve been warning against climate change since Bush 1) support AGW is because the overwhelming preponderance of evidence is in favour of it. I’m not trolling here – I really get tired of people on this site making outrageous, frequently and thoroughly disproven claims to the applause of the echo chamber and the armchair climatologists.
Pause? No. Slowdown? Yes. But the problem is that when whatever natural variation that’s slowing the rate of increase down goes away, we’re going to have a real problem.

I wrote a reply to Jimbo but then I accidentally deleted it and gave up. I have been trolling up a storm and despair of finding that notification again, but if someone wants to remind me of the question I can take a run at it.

Certainly,
Please go to the article titled ” Climate change- follow the money” and look up the conversation between you and Jimbo again. It’s all clear there.
Ta for a reasonable reply. I didn’t see any sarcasm.
A

Thanks I wasn’t being sarcastic either. Obviously because I’m commenting on a site where the majority of people disagree with me vehemently, and where no minds are going to be changed (because the internet) I’m basically a troll. But I’m doing it because I believe what I say, and I see no reason to be rude. I am at work but I will respond to Jimbo later.

Thank you.
You will doubtless have realised at this stage that this is a most polarising area of debate.
I used to think as you do but began to question matters after “climategate” and looked farther afield. With respect to changing of minds I will stick my head out here and say that very many on this site have already changed our minds to the position we now hold.
Have you ever held a formerly “sceptical/denialist etc” frame of reference Flash and have now adopted the position you hold on the basis of wider analysis? This question is a most interesting one in my mind as I have yet to see the switch from “denialist” to “alarmist”. I would be most interested to see examples of such though.
The worst prognostications of holders of the “alarmist” side just simply have not happened and so the question is not one of whether there is a greenhouse effect from CO2 (no-one will deny that) but whether it is something we need worry about at all.?
There are VERY REAL environmental concerns in the world but the current paradigm has completely hijacked the prospects of real progress with these due to gross misallocation of available resources. That, in my view, is absolutely criminal…One could argue genocidal on certain grounds but I harbour little hope that those responsible will be held to account in the Hague/Nuremberg/wherever.
Despite disagreement (which I fully accept) I would hope that you could, at least, see my point of view?
Please please put the label of “troll” that you have garnered (not by me at this point I hope you see) to rest by politely attempting to address what I have suggested above.
Cheers Flash.
A

Good comment.
It’s harder to cook the satellite books than the surface stations, which can be “adjusted” at will to show whatever best fits. Luckily the adjusters are constrained by the watching satellites.

Sir Harry Flashman: “a slowdown doesn’t reverse the laws of physics that are causing warming”
You mean the bit about co2 having a logarithmic warming effect? Yes we are all hiding in the corner.
In the mean time the models are fantasizing about non-existent positive feedbacks.

I’m so old I remember when NASA could take astronaut’s to space. Now they should be called NAPA. And the P stands for Politics. There’s Trouble, right here in River City. That start’s with T, and that rhymes with P and that stands for Politics. Yes, we got Trouble…….

Flashman says:“warmist scientists” = all the scientists. “Cause of the pause” is a denier phrase, since there’s no pause. What real-life science grownups are talking about
First off, what is a “denier”? And since I am probably one of those you are insulting, exactly what is it I am ‘denying’?
And you are wrong, as usual when you claim that “all scientists” are warminsts. You clearly havew never heard of Dr. Miskolczi and others, who “deny” your baseless globaloney.
Next:There’s no pause (although there has been a slowdown in the rate of increase.)
Please stop making things up.
Then you write:I have been trolling up a storm…
For once, we agree.

Nick Stokes November 18, 2014 at 2:51 pm
Well, there’s plenty of data manipulation. They aren’t just reading a thermometer.
———————————————–
Is that to suggest that there’s someone who does “just read a thermometer”?

Quoth Sir Harry Flashman;
The thing is, the people who study climate professionally are in pretty much universal agreement that a slowdown doesn’t reverse the laws of physics that are causing warming, and that the piper is still going to have to be paid.
I am very relieved to hear that paid climate studiers are not blaming the slowdown on a reversal of “the laws of physics”.

Sir Harry Flashman;The thing is, the people who study climate professionally are in pretty much universal agreement that a slowdown doesn’t reverse the laws of physics that are causing warming, and that the piper is still going to have to be paid.
Well, these would be the same people who just a few years ago said the science was settled, the models reality, and the danger imminent. There was quite a bit of universal agreement back then too. Didn’t turn out well for them. The laws all work. The application of the laws and their incorporation in to climate models seems to be somewhat divorced from reality, but that’s problem the modelers are going to have to explain, not a problem for the laws themselves, and no indication that there is a piper to even pay,

In an article titled, Physicists View of “the Precautionary Principle” (20 April 2012), physicist, Dr Gordon J Fulks, expressed the situation perfectly:
“In all of these arguments of a political nature, what is overwhelmingly lost is the real science and hence the real truth as best we know it. Science has NOTHING to do with how many supporters you can count amongst those you deem worthy in the scientific profession.
In 1905 Albert Einstein stood against the entire classical physics world with his new ideas on relativity. A few years later, a high school biology teacher from Seattle (Harlen Bretz) stood against the entire geological profession with his explanations of Pacific Northwest geology. And just a few years ago, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren stood against the entire medical profession to explain the real cause of peptic ulcers.
It is as Galileo said many centuries ago: ‘The authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.’
Hence the fundamental issue for me is the survival of science as an objective profession. Continuous spin from highly political non-scientists does not help. And complicity among many scientists who want the government grants to continue is very destructive.”

Some of those ‘ scientists’ are highly political themselves such Dr Doom coal ‘death trains’. For some it is not just ‘fame and fortune’ that matters but the feeding of massive ego’s and pursuing of political outlooks which their massive ego’s tell them can only be consider both right and good.

This is the one paper I wasn’t so sure how to categorize. They carefully avoid using the terms ‘hiatus’ or ‘pause’ and conclude that “There is no indication of any slowdown or acceleration of global
warming” but add “beyond the variability induced by these known natural factors.” In other words, once they removed some factors that helped create a slowdown, there was no slowdown.
-Chip

There is no contradiction. Models do not predict.
Your first link refers to the 2007 report. It projects from the year 2000.
It then gives you the reason why “For the next….” as I am sure you read, starting on Paragraph 4 “Model….”
You now look at the graph on your second link. Obviously something must be wrong, since you also already know that CO2 continued to increase during this new period from the year 2001 to now.
The green line indicates no increase, but you are even more concerned with the blue line indicating cooling.
I have already commented above (see under rd50) about this type of graph.
Neither the green or blue lines should be there. NO line of any kind should be there.
The only thing to be there are the data points and nothing else. Then the legend under the figure should be “Scatter plot of measurements made during year xxx to year yyy. Linear regression analysis indicated no statistically significant trend” . You can then add the average of all the values if you want.
What do you do now?
Well you need to adjust your model to take care of this “pause, hiatus, plateau, call it whatever you want” so that there will be no contradiction with mother nature for this period. But then what? Measurements will continue to come in. The pause may continue or increases or decreases may start. It will be fun to see how adjustments for up or down results will then be made after adjusting the models for the pause.
Just for the fun of it, remember that the modelers have already specified that for them, they need to see 17 years of data to declare a trend to be real. No increase between 2001 an 2005, not enough. No increase between 2001 and 2010, not enough…….So they will have plenty of time to adjust their models.

“What Cook et al. did claim to find—that a high percentage of scientists that think that humans play some role in “global warming”—seems to comport pretty well with our own experiences with climate scientists and the climate literature. We definitely would fall within Cook’s 97 percent.”
“So while 97% of scientists may agree that global warming is caused by humans”
You went from a correct view of the 97% figure – that humans probably play SOME role in warming – to stating the incorrect public perception – that ALL warming is human caused.
Who proof reads your columns, CATO? Anyone?

how come you claim that “100% Say It (warming) Has Nearly Stopped” when average temperature according to figure 1 in 1910 was aprox minus 0,5 Celsius and in 2000 to 2010 about plus 0,5 Celsius;
that is one full degree Celsius warmer; I can’t say it has stopped;

John Cook’s methodology proves that nine out ten cats prefer whiskers . Indeed John Cook’s methodology proves anything you want it to when employed ‘correctly ‘ because top to bottom its totally rubbish science but good marketing.

Spot on. When is the UN IPCC, Banky Moon and Obama going to read this and ask the question why has CO2 continued to increase (240 to >400ppm), without any increase in Global warming temperatures for 15-18 years.

It’s hard to believe 3% of scientists would deny any human influence on the climate, given that just building concrete and brick cities on Earth guarantees local warming compared with grass, weeds, bushes and trees.
.
In addition, dark soot on Northern Hemisphere ice and snow, mainly from coal burning in the Northern Hemisphere, must absorb more solar energy than pristine ice and snow would.
.
Having those two beliefs would put me in Cook’s “97%” even though any leftist who read my articles on climate change would call me a “climate denier”, or worse.
.
If I would have been part of the 97%, the statistic is meaningless.
.
I have been observing leftists lie and confuse people since the 1960’s — they have to because they promote an inferior economic system called socialism.
.
“Climate change” is just their latest MacGuffin — if ever refuted, perhaps by five really cold winters in a row, they will select yet another MacGuffin to scare people … into allowing them to move forward on their anti-capitalism, anti-prosperity, anti-economic growth and anti-population growth agenda.
.
“Climate change” is 99% politics and 1% science — that’s why it is so frustrating to people here who base conclusions on data, facts and logic.
.
The IPCC mandate was to prove humans cause climate change — their mission was NOT to investigate the climate without bias.

John Cook’s study looked at nearly 13,974 scientific papers; Knappenberger looked at 35. He hand picked the papers that used the term “hiatus”, “pause”, or “slow down”; is it not surprising that those papers would then discuss a potential slowdown? These are not comparable studies. Knappenberger hand picked the studies that fit his pre-existing conclusion.
If he had actually wanted to do this in a comparable manner, he would have pulled all the scientific papers that were tagged “climate change”, and examined the number that discussed a potential slow down. It should be made clear that he did not do this here.

Nick Stokes November 18, 2014 at 5:21 pm
First, your temperature curve is worthless becauise it is riddled with computer noise. See my note to Catherine Ronconi. Second, you are cheating by not showing the eighties and nineties that precede this temperature segment. Don’t use HadCRUT either, it that has a false slope in the eighties and nineties. Switch to satellites according to which the slope is zero. It is also discontinuous at the turn of the century and you must not be line it up with the right-hand side.

About that “97% consensus”, we now have two separate surveys that suggest that high percentage number was because of the question being phrased to be interpreted to mean “do humans have an influence on climate change”, which even most skeptics would say yes to.
But the relevant question should be “are humans the PRIMARY cause of climate change”. Watts discussed a survey last year that showed when the question is phrased this way the agreement is only in the range of 50%:
The 97% consensus myth – busted by a real survey.
Anthony Watts / November 20, 2013http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/20/the-97-consensus-myth-busted-by-a-real-survey/
Now another survey that shows when the question is phrased as whether humans are the main cause of climate change the answer is only about 50% even among scientists:
Only 50% Of Scientists Blame Mankind for Climate Change In New Study.
By Sean Long | November 20, 2014 | 9:33 AM ESThttp://newsbusters.org/blogs/sean-long/2014/11/20/only-50-scientists-blame-mankind-climate-change-new-study
Bob Clark

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